She is playing games with my heart...

OK, let's get one thing out of the way here: I think it's highly unlikely that she's just messing with you for fun. And she's not playing games with you either.

I think she is confused. Me and my best friend are inseparable too. I do love him. But I was never sexually attracted to him, and he wasn't with me either. We got so close that we joked about our relationship being "everything but the sex". I always thought that if we were to just "add the sex", then we would be in a relationship. To cut a long, long story short: we both became sexually attracted to each other, and he wanted to go out with me. And I wanted to go out with him for a bit, too. But then it hit me: the type of love I had for him was not the same type of love that I had for other people that I've been close to or had a crush on. It just wasn't the same. I couldn't have been more wrong about "adding the sex". Sure, I love him, but it is a different type of love.

But the thing is that love is hard to distinguish and differentiate. It took me a lot of time to figure out the type of love I had for him and whether this type of love was compatible with a relationship or not. I went through periods of thinking it was, and periods of thinking it wasn't. And I messed my friend around in the process and really hurt him without meaning to. (Everything is OK now, though.)

The point being: your friend clearly does love you. But whether she is "in love" with you is another question. And it is probably really hard for her to figure out which one it is. When she said she "never loved you", what she meant was that she came to the conclusion that the form of love wasn't the form of love that she thought it was.

It took me a few weeks to stop the kind of "I'm in love—oh wait—no I'm not" fluctuations from happening in my mind and settle on the one I felt.

I don't know what to say other than you have to give her time to figure it out. Maybe you need to text her and explain some of what I've said here. I don't know.

It's hard though. It's really hard, and I hate that I did a similar thing to someone else. But I definitely didn't do it deliberately. You would have to be cruel and heartless, and I don't think your friend sounds like that.

 

Oh crap, I didn't realise it had been five months. In that case, I hate to come to this conclusion, but it's likely that she's made the same one. I would say that she probably has figured out that she isn't "in love" with you, and that she thinks it would be too hard for you for her to continue being friends with you given that she knows you're in love with her.

I really don't know what else to say.

This is a ridiculously hard thing to get over, given that you've firstly lost your best friend, and secondly, you're dealing with unrequited love from a crush, and thirdly, they're both in relation to the same person. It can't get much worse as far as love is concerned.

And I'm unfortunately also aware that although when we're in these kind of situations we "want" to get over them, we also don't want to move on. And that's what's hardest. I can't say I've been successful in getting over things like this, so I'd feel silly trying to give advice on this. There is one person that I got over, and all I know is that I never really got over them, but just learned to push it to one side of my mind. Little things still remind me of them, but it doesn't hurt as bad as it used.

This is probably a terrible suggestion, but did you ever think of like a hook-up or something? Or going out and meeting new people? These things help, but time is the only thing that really does the trick.

 

Just to add another thought here -

Without trying to guess what your friend is thinking or feeling, it might be helpful to think of her in terms of having boundary issues. That is, she has trouble realizing that going back and forth on this with you is hurtful for you, and just lets her thoughts and emotions flood out without considering how they might impact you, especially based on your history with her.

However, you have the right and the power to establish boundaries too. Do you think you would be able to set some restrictions with her? For example, you might decide - if the pendulum does swing back and she gets back in touch - that phone conversations should be limited to half an hour. Or that you're always going to wait a few minutes to text her back instead of rushing to answer. You might decide that hanging out has to happen in public, and not just with the two of you at home - it might even be something that you want to limit to the daytime.

You might tell her about these boundaries and you might not, but if this is becoming a pattern and you're realizing that all that's going to happen is you getting hurt, then it would be a good idea to hold yourself back from the situation next time.

 

I think she's confused. She doesn't know what she wants, but I do believe that she loves you. Maybe not the way you love her and I know how heartbreaking that must be. I'm in love with my friend who I also babysit for, but I'd never tell her. I will always love her no matter what and it's hard seeing her and hugging her without melting inside. And because I feel this way about her, I limit contact outside of my working for her. It helps, but I'd rather have her as a friend than nothing at all. I'm trying to move on and I'm talking to someone else, so perhaps you should start dating. And make sure you rub that shit in her face

 

That's understandable, I mean I'm not even like that. It's just that once you move on she's going to try to reel you in again. We always want what we cannot have and she's going to realize what a huge mistake she's making. The girl I've been dating told me that she loves me, but I could never tell her I feel the same if it's not true. I truly believe that she loves you, is she receiving negative feedback from someone? It seems to me like she's not being honest with how she feels.

 

Is she out?

To me, it sounds like she might be struggling with her sexuality--like, she has feelings for you, but she doesn't want to, and which side of that is winning keeps changing.

Whatever the case may be, it's pretty obvious that she isn't ready to be in a relationship with you. You should definitely take Gravity's advice, and set some boundaries.

 

Knowing that she does question if she's straight or not would have me extremely worried. Your heart is already breaking and it's most definitely not fair to you given that she knows how you feel. She's probably straight when it's convenient and bisexual when she wants you around. On top of that she disappeared on you for 5 months, what kind of friend does that? Someone who does not care about your feelings

Believe me when I tell you that I feel your pain. The girl I was dating got pregnant by her ex while we were dating . I didn't even know she was sleeping with him because I thought she was gay. You need someone who knows what they want.

 

Thanks, I guess it's my fault. I knew she wasn't over him. People tend to treat us a particular way because we allow it. I hope everything works out for the best, I know it's not easy (*hug*)

 

Sounds as if she is not thinking about any commitment and is keeping all options open. She doesn't want to upset anyone ad at that age wants to be liked by everyone. Natural at that age. Just be a friend and do not pressure her.